Adam Yoshida writes in:
Hey Kevin,
Your post made me experience something like deja vu. I saw the same story via the BBC website yesterday, and was thinking about posting, but got distracted and didn't.
We're never going to run out of seafood, just out of the variety, quantity, and size of things that we want to eat. I think it was William Gibson who wrote about the future food being made from processed krill- krill burgers, krill chocolate shakes, etc...
In the States, we have already made progress in marine conservation. In California, a large part of our coastline has been declared off limits to commercial fishermen and even to recreational fishermen (which is kind of stupid, but that's just my opinion as a sports fisherman). I fucking hate these "tragedy of the commons" dilemmas. It all just seems so hopeless.
Anyhow, I'm glad you enjoyed the haniwa. Hopefully I'll raise an army of over 100 of them by 2007!
Adam
Back in August, Adam's brother Justin posted a link to an article about the fundamental changes occurring in our oceans. The article's thrust was that the overfishing of evolved organisms-- the fish we know and love-- was allowing a kind of "primitivization" of the ocean: "lower" life forms, such as "fireweed" cyanobacteria and jellyfish, are now starting to take over large swaths of coast and reef. According to that article, one practical change for us landlubbers might be a switch to eating jellyfish. This seems to dovetail with Adam's vision of a much-reduced variety of sea-born edibles.
Perhaps our state and national aquariums will be pressed into serving a different function fifty years from now. Pair those facilities up with the near future's cloning technology and voilà-- la solution!
UPDATE: Some folks are skeptical about the doomsaying. Richardson also comments via email: "Using jellyfish protein for food sounds like a great idea; I hope it's mixed with kelp and called 'Soylent Green.'"
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